wits7yle

The best way to find out whether Trading is really truly for you. 1) Do not sim trade. 2) Trade real money and if your curiosity continues to grow and progress each day/week/month despite losing piles of money, if you find yourself doing whatever it takes to supplement your income while you trade, scrambling to pay off your creditors, embracing social and financial struggles, and after 2+ years of doing this and your passion has not waned. YOU ARE A TRUE TRADER. If after all this you're still trading or attempting to trade, it's just a matter of time...my friend. I might add that the hardships and struggle you face as a human being going thru this journey is absolutely priceless. The person that comes out of the rubble at the end of it all both personally, socially and professionally is not to be taken lightly at all.

As a preface, I only trade US Equities The one breakthrough that turned it all around for me was when I realized that instead of focusing on the 'setups' (when in fact, most traders are the ones being SET UP) it was all about establishing my bias for market direction (comes with hours and hours of market price action study and countless hours being in the chair losing my shirt many times) and once I establish the odds of a market move I will be accumulating in an 'Area' that I think the stock will turn IN the same direction as the market at key *Reversal Times* and only a stock I am very familiar with and have traded many times. After I initiate a trade, I also monitor market internals to figure out if I should be ringing the register as I am profitable (scalping for profit and also trailing my stop-HITTING SINGLES) or HOLDING the entire position for a Target Area (HOMERUN). I have almost consistent daily profitability now and the occasional 1 or 2 homerun trades per week. I find myself very happy at the end of each week. One Caveat: I also know when NOT to trade. This is when I don't lose any profits I already made and preserve capital for when I do see an opportunity.

For some reason, I find that Svensa has more of a grasp of trading successfully than JohnnySDG...I'm just sayin... and I agree, Svensa's inference is apparent to me and I understand this: that the key to profitability in Trading really is 1) Risk management (sharesizing, leverage) and 2) Psychology (knowing yourself, trading your own style and preserving mental capital when things are not going your way) I'm not saying that commissions are a concern but it is definitely lower on the totem pole of concerns of trading when you fully understand this business.

Troy, how'd you get good at Poker? What was the journey you had to take? Did you learn from other successful poker players? Did you constantly read about how successful poker players play? How they think and respond and do? Point is: to learn how to trade is like starting with anything you endeavor to do, and that is to get an education from someone or a collective knowledge (school/education company, etc..) Secondly, once you commit to the education, apply it in the markets. I am not a big believer in papertrading. One of the reasons why is if it doesn't "count" you won't put your heart and soul into it and you won't truly learn that way. My biggest lessons, Ah-Hah moments and turnarounds came from my biggest emotional pains and struggles by losing real money. Trading is all about psychology and risk management NOT setups, systems, technicals, fundamentals, etc... Those are only vehicles to your destination but not the "Skill". Kind of like driving, it doesn't matter what car you choose as there are thousands of different models to choose from but if you don't know how to drive and operate a car and not get killed by driving recklessly YOU WILL get to the destination. Focus on the "skill" (psychology) and "operations" (risk/money management) and the vehicle (technicals/system) will take care of itself.

Troy, First of all, kudos to you for doing your due diligence and research on what you want to do before you plunge into the world of daytrading. I for one, am a person who don't really "think" before I leap and I just plunge right into whatever I want to do and am passionate about. Although, I had sacrificed ALOT over the years, I learned tremendously about myself and what I can withstand mentally and physically as a human being and a aspiring trader. Even though, I learned a lot, I don't recommend you doing things without thinking through it first and I think you're doing a great job of that. I don't usually post on this forum, (just read) I felt that your thread really speaks to a lot of people on the sidelines starting out and wondering about how they can start daytrading and make it a career. I think your post was well written and I want to help you with your decision and guide your thoughts as best as possible. I think the best way to reply to your post is to tell you about my own journey through how I got started and somewhere along the way, I'll get to your question about the 30% return. I started full time trading about a year and 8 months ago now. I'll be the first to admit that although, I have nothing significant in terms of $ gained to show for it yet (matter of fact, lost a lot of money, maybe more than $50K USD), my passionate for trading is stronger than ever and gets stronger every single day. The best part of it is your development to become a better person because what I've learned is to be successful in trading, you learn how to be successful in life. Trading and life mirrors each other. Having said that, I feel like right now, I'm beginning to turn the corner in profitability. I have not lost money in any single day for 3 weeks now and counting albeit small amounts but I intend to keep it that way for as long as I possibly can and will be stepping up my "bet" size as I gain my momentum to earn more money daily. Actually, as I am typing now, I realize I have to go. I'll continue this reply later and I'll try to hit on most of your points in your original post because there is a lot to talk about, but let me quickly answer your question on your mind about the 30%. This is assuming you trade equities (stocks). Here in the states, brokerage firms give you Leverage on your equity. If you go with a professional firm, they typically start you off with 10:1. So with 100K equity invested to open an account, you'll be receiving up to and can use $1mil to trade with. With $1m to trade, you can easily buy 1000 shares of a fast moving stock say RIMM, and if you can make $0.50 on the trade, you're up $500 minus commission and fees. Without going much into detail, I have pulled from the market intraday anywhere from about $200 - $800 in one day with $200K in buying power meaning only 20K equity invested. Let's say you desire to do this every day and trade on average of 20 days per month. You can make anywhere from $48K - $192K a year. Keep in mind, I've only put up $20K of my own money so 48K is more than double as an ROI and $192K...you do the math. This is entirely possible. I trade actively in a room where the moderator in the room consistently pulls out $1K - $5K every day with $2mil in Buying Power. I see this with my own eyes. Of course, I'm also assuming you've finally hit that mark where you can trade consistently (like him) and trust me when I tell you this my friend, the road to profitability is filled with pain, sorrow, emotional distress, sacrifice and most important critical of all, the inevitability of lost $$$. Sometimes, a lot of money before you can get to that point. But, with that comes extreme pleasure, passion ignited, the ability to live in total freedom potentially without concern for finances forever. TO BE CONTINUED...

4 Things that has changed my trading career and will change yours: 1) Follow an All or Nothing Management Policy until you can prove with valid statistics that you can beat it. (80% of all traders still cannot beat AoN trading) 2) Trade WITH the market and in the vast majority of cases WITH the trend of the stock you're trading 3) Review all your trades end of day and weed out your mistakes until you've eliminated all your demons 4) Trade a strategy in your plan. (You'll be in awe when you review your trades and how many of those losing trades were the result of a violation of your trading plan/rules)